2,500 avocets, 1,500 sandpipers, 3,000 flamingos, and several hundred stilts. In just our little section. I did not get the final tally for the entire lagoon and surrounding saltworks. Just take my word for that there were A LOT of birds. And so, why not spend my Saturday off counting birds with a lovely bunch of bird lovers?

It is quite remarkable that an avocet on the 23rd latitude South looks just like an avocet on the 60th latitude North. An oystercatcher here looks like an oystercatcher back home in Finland, only that it is a solid black and not black-and-white. Sandpipers, turnstones, gulls, and plovers all look like their relatives up North. Kind of. With a twist. And different names.

And a plover here is pronounced “pl-oh-ver”, instead of “pl-uh-ver”. Weird.

(Walvis Bay, Namibia; July 2017)